Hey everyone!
I wish I had time to reply back to everyone's messages individually, but as it turns out internet is getting slower and slower as we move along!
Chiang Mai was awesome! So much culture and so many nice people. That's what Garreth and I have really noticed here in Thailand: the people are so nice! Even with a language barrier, the people still go out of their way to help you out as much as they can.
Last night we were looking for a gas station and couldn't find one, so we asked a Thai couple on another scooter, they couldn't...

21 March
Another day of traveling. This time I traveled to Pai, a 105 kilometers trip. The trip took more than 3 hour to do, because of the very rugged terrain. It was very much uphill and downhill a very winding road, sometimes the road was like a serpentine. So the average speed was low, lesser than 30 km/h. Pai is a rather small town, but became a big meeting place among back packers, a little bit of northern Thailand’s answer to Bangkok’s Khao Sanh Road. Just like Mae Hong Son, I had a flying start here too. Whit in an hour I was out...

Pai was proberly the hardest place to get to interms of the transprt, god it was horrible, to say the 'bus' was a chicken van is an understatment. it took us 4 hours, i felt like death anyway, we couldn't sleep because we were being thrown around everywhere, the seats were so hard our arse's were crying and the only good thing really was for claire...leg room, obviouslyi dont have the luxury of having stupmy legs, so my legs were up by my ears!
HORRIBLE but worth it!!!
The best way of describing Pai is a very small town in the middle of a...

Took about an hour to find a place that wasn't full in pai. This place was swarmed with Thai's and their families for the holiday. We looked into a few rafting tours and decided on a 2 day rafting and one night stay in the jungle down the Pai river(60 kms) with Thai Rafting Adventures. We also spent quite a while trying to figure out where we wanted to be for New Years.
Rafting Day 1 --
Smaller raft with me, jamie and guide. 5 French guys in the group as well going down the river, but they had the bigger raft. Being it dry season the rapids...

Had a great few days in Pai before returning to Chiang Mai.
Having an Xmas meal in Chiang Mai with our good friends Chris and Oh and son Safe and tomorrow morning 25th off on a road trip to a national park, north of Bangkok.
Sprouts are on the menu..yip yip.
UPDATE ENTRY: We did, indeed spend a few relaxing days at Pai where, thankfully, little has changed since our previous visit a couple of years ago - although we did notice a considerable increase in the number of young Thai tourists. Apparently, a romantic film had been made, featuring...

I am so sore from that hike! I do a fair amount of hiking back home in Colorado, but I think the biggest difference was having to scramble over all the large boulders down in the caves. My thighs are very sore, but also my entire back and shoulders. Ouch!
After leaving Soppong, I took a two hour bus to the little town of Pai. Pai is an interesting place because it doesn't have any Thai wats or any significant Thai history. It's just this little hippie town that could be anywhere in the world, but just happens to be in Thailand. Lots of live...

Pai is a little bit of an oddity, really its nothing more than a village that has grown into a traveller's hangout thanks to its ability to attract more than its fair share of the artistic types, musicians in particular.
I hired a scooter on my first day to take a look at Pai and its surroundings, there's not a whole lot here to be honest, its a place for rest and relaxation but without the beach.

So we arrived in the charming little town of Pai via an "air conditioned" bus on May 21st. The four hour trip we feel is a bit of a taste of things to come as we face a fair bit more traveling through Laos and Cambodia. To be honest, we were beginning to be a bit leery of the recommendation we had received for the town as things started to go a little downhill once we arrived. Actually it was mainly the hostel, mosquitoes lurking behind every possible corner, rat droppings in the mosquito net and probably the worst part, the shower clogged...

After a day spent in Chiang Mai sorting travel arrangements and then visiting the night bazaar for some delicious dinner, we headed further north to a little place called Pai.
We spent 2 days in Pai but easily could have spent much longer. The town has a really lovely laid back atmosphere where nobody seems to be in a rush to move on EVER!
We had decided to treat ourselves to one of the places slightly further out of town, it was aptly named Paradise and Paradise it really was. Imagine lots of beautiful little bungulows set around a...

Hello- I can't believe it has been weeks since my last update. I have had a great few weeks filled with many laughs and "moments." Well I think I had lost my mind after the bus ride from Southern Thailand to Bangkok...because I boarded the 2nd class train from BKK to Chang Mai...16 hours and a million laughs and tears later I arrived. I was the only westerner on the train and now I know why (lets just say it was Almost comparable to the 3d class train in India). It was HOT HOT HOT and SLOW SLOW SLOW...but I made it to Chang Mai and took a...

Pai is lovely in one word. No beggars,no sellers,no hookers.... A river, the nmountains and lots of activities. Like my first experience on a HONDA XR250. Brooooom brrooooomm...
Awesome dudes! Chilling in the swimming pool in the daytime and live music every evening in Grindhouse, Phu Pai, Bebop and ending the night in Bamboo bar....
Now getting ready for Thai New Year,the waterfight. Or better,the biggest waterfight in the world in Chiang MAi. News later...

Welcome to the hippie capital of Thailand..
Pai is a little town about 100 kms from Chiang Mai. After the steepest, windiest road (762 curves) we have seen so far, we arrived in Pai. It was a little more crowded than usual, since there was a Reggae festival going on, so we were lucky to find a place to stay!
The overall mood of Pai is very laid back.. It consists of huts and tents on the river, lots of live music, and a lot of backpackers! One of the highlights of the town was a Wat that was located up on the hillside.. We did a little...